The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1887-03-30
THE SORROWS OF GEavE-D,GGEKS.
They iIl 0ic Pocr---Their Woes Told by
One 0f the Craft.
Cgro,n The New York sta

(Erom The New York STAR
B,uying the dead in Calvary cemetery
has come to be disagreeable job to the
union of gravc-diggers, but as no walk
ing delegate appeared in the cemetery
yesterday, the grave-diggers were kept
busy al day with pick and shovel, digging
new graves. The announcement that
the Yorick association had struck was
premature. 1t has presented It's ultima
trlm to the authorities Of Calvary ceme-
terry, and it awaits their answer. One
Of the gravc-diggers, a very intelligent
man, leaned on his spade in the cemete-
ry yesterday and said to a reporter OF
the Star:
"Grave-I1igging is about as hard and
unhealthfJl an occupation as there IS. |
suppose that the average term of life OF
graye-digger is much less than that Of
most other workmen. We don't go off
as quickly as they do in powder mill,
but we go fast enough. Every day We
work we are digging our own graves.
Grave-diggers do not last more than five
or six years. They get crippled by
working in the damp ground, and have
to go to the poorhouse, and sometimes
their families have to go along with
them. Pneumonia gets its grip on them
in these cola, wet graves, and in few
days the grave digger's fellow-workmen
are digging his grave, and rafting the
clods down MIN. There are only two
old grave-iliggers in the cemetery, and
after they have worked SO many years at
the trade their wages have been reduced
from 81. 10 to S1.50 day, because they
are so old. One Of the men has been
digging graves for about thirty years.
He may be said to have lived in the
cemetery.
ga grave is 9 feet deep, feet long
and . feet wide at the bottom. Some
times we have to make it ten or twelve
feet wide at the top to prevent the sides
from falling in. In the winter the frost
is sometimes two feet deep, and digging
the grave IS like cutting through granite.
1t takes from half to three.quarters Of a
day to dig Z grave, and, as our fellow
workman says III Hamlet, 1t lasts for
ever 1t takes q skilled man to make
grave. An unsliiled hand would be
very likely to bury himself. Nearly all
the people We ever see here are IN tears,
and, considering the hard, disagreeable
and unhealthy character OF the work We
do, we think we ought to be decently
paid for it. st present We get Sl.l3 a
day, and lose the rainy afternoons. In
winter We are laid off about one week in
four, and lose rainy days besides. My
pay last month was OH; SS55:3}, which IS
but traction over 81 a day for every
day in tie month.
ave are always in debt to the baker
and the butcher, and it is impossible for
US to put by any money for the time
when we shall be too old to dig graves.
The superintendent OF the cemetery gets
s., 800 a year, or about so a week. OF
course lie is 10th to advance our wages.
In summer we make about SO q week.
It has been said that We own our houses.
There isn't Il grave-digger in Calvary
cemetery who owns bis house or will
ever get money enough to own one.
Tile cemetery gets 81 for every full
sized grave that's dug, and it gets 1000
on the side hill there fora plot Of ground
sixteen feet by eighteen. 1t can certain
ly afford to pay 81 Il day to the grave
diggers, and they earn that much. Most
all the people buried here are poor peo-
pie. They are tie longshoremen, hod-
carriers, carpenters, masons and brick
layers OF New York. They do not want
to lie in cheap labor graves.
"The good Bishop 2IcLough!in, of
Brooklyn. pays s. day to the grave
tiggers in Flatbush cemetery, and he
pays it every day-rain or shine.